Album Review – Tennessee Jet’s “Ranchero”


The name will probably be familiar to independent country fans. Whether you’ve seen it ascribed as TJ McFarland, or his stage name Tennessee Jet, he’s a primary member of the songwriting collective in the orbit of Cody Jinks, helping to pen the songs of the country music revolution. Jinks might be the performer of the current Saving Country Music Song of the Year called “What You Love,” but Tennessee Jet shares in that accolade as the song’s co-writer.

Even more important when it comes to mailbox money is Tennessee Jet’s co-write with John Jeffers of Whiskey Myers on the now Platinum-certified song “Bury My Bones.” Tennessee Jet offers his own version of the song on his new album Ranchero, which features nine country rock songs that vary from the poetically eloquent, to the politically polarizing, to the patently entertaining.

“Tennessee” might be in his name, but it’s how his home base in Oklahoma puts him in close proximity to both Texas and the Tulsa scenes that makes him a good on-call collaborator. Oklahoma is the setting for some of the songs of Ranchero, including the opening song “The Oklahoma Rose” profiling an intriguing female character. Ray Wylie Hubbard is from Oklahoma too, and he gets a whole song named after him, and one that reminds you so much of The Beatles’ “Come Together,” it can only be taken as a tribute.

Tennessee Jet can write a song with the best of them when he wants to. That’s why he’s found so many suitors in the writing room. He proves his talents unarguably with the new song “Poetry in Blood.” What he’s also proven over multiple albums now is that he sings what he wants to sing. The world may not need another version of Soul Asylum’s “Runaway Train,” especially from someone known for writing original songs. But TJ supplies one anyway, because that’s what TJ wants to do.


TJ also says what he wants to say, ramifications be damned. Though he calls himself apolitical, as is not uncommon with some who claim this alignment, some of his songs clearly code to the right. That was definitely the case with 2023’s “2+2,” which got him in trouble with Tulsa’s iconic club The Mercury Lounge. They canceled one of his shows over the song. On Ranchero it’s the song “From The River To The Sea” that is sure to have some crying foul, even if the opinions forwarded are more heterodox then they might sound at first, at least compared to “2+2.”

Tennessee Jet has never really shown an allegiance to a sound, or an approach, or even a genre. Ranchero might be his most cohesive expression yet, and it’s still sort of all over the place. At times its more rock, at other times it’s country, and at times it’s both. His writing can be both involved and heady, and at other times plainspoken. What becomes evident by the end of Ranchero is that Tennessee Jet has no master plan. He’s not trying to become the next superstar. He’s just following his passions wherever they take him, even if they lead him places that leave some listeners behind.

You can’t help but respect Tennessee Jet’s honesty, his integrity to himself, and his passion. Ranchero touches a range of emotions unlike the monotone songwriter records that have become all the rage in the Zach Bryan era. For some, Tennessee Jet will continue to remain as polarizing as some of the subjects he broaches (ask Jason Isbell how that goes). But he isn’t censoring himself for anybody, or bending to anyone’s idea of what they want him to be.

7.8/10

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